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Saturday, August 4, 2012

FM training details

As mentioned (a few times) in previous posts my next marathon Mohawk Hudson River Marathon is on 7th October 2012. I started my 16 weeks training program for this marathon on 18th June using FIRST's 'Run Less,Run Faster' program with a target time of sub 3:38 to qualify for Boston marathon 2014. The essence of this program is '3Plus2', that is, 3 quality and specific running workouts and 2 cross training workouts. The 3 training workouts are: 1. Interval training 2. Tempo run 3. Long run and the cross-training workout can be either cycling, swimming or rowing or a combination thereof.

I have been doing 5 or 6 workouts per week and complementing it with strengthening (at Manipal Hospital Department of Sports Medicine and at home) and stretching after each workout and a few times in the evening. The strengthening exercises I do at home are :squats, walking lunges and step-ups. The stretches are mainly for hamstrings,quads,glutes and calves. Before the stretches I try and do exercises on the foam roller for the same areas as well as the ITB.

My best case (or ideal) weekly schedule is as follows. I have been able to keep to it to a large extent except during travel or when I have evening work related calls/meetings or personal commitments. I would say the morning workouts have been 90%+ to plan; the evening ones have been 70% to plan!

Interval training was at the tracks at Kanteerava Stadium till last week when Department of Youth Sports and Services(DYSS) which controls access to the stadium decided to restrict access to the stadium for amateur runners. This was a real bummer as I had started enjoying the training at the stadium. Based on the strong suggestion of coach Dharam I did my this week's intervals (Yasso's 800- more on that in the next post) at Cubbon park in the stretch from the central library to the Hudson Circle gate. And surprisingly enjoyed it even more than the tracks at Kanteerva.

Tempo runs (between 3 and 8 miles) are usually on the Indiranagar-Koramangla Inner Ring road or EGL.

Long runs (13 to 22 miles) are usually solo at EGL - sometimes I have joined the BHUKMP Dandi at Inner Ring Road.

In the 2nd edition of the 'Run Less, Run Faster' book (released in April 2012) the cross-training cycling workouts are described in detail and classified as Easy, Tempo and Hard to correspond in intensity with Easy, Tempo and Hard(or interval) runs. My easy cycling workout is usually at 27-30Kmph/75-80 RPM. The Tempo workouts are 30-33Kmph/80-90 RPM and the hard cycling workouts at > 33Kmph and 85+ RPM. Have found it challenge to sustain 5 minutes of hard cycling workout.

So far I have been able to do at least 4 workouts every week including all the 3 key running workouts. Except this week(week #7) I had to skip the long run (13 miles at 8:34 per mile) due to a strain in my left hip. I am keeping fingers crossed and hoping to keep as close to the above schedule as possible for the rest of 9 weeks of my training!!